Top Ten Tuesday/ Dogs With Covers

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by thatartsyreadergirl with a new topic every week.

April 11: Titles with Animals In Them and/or Covers with Animals On Them (submitted by Rachel @ Sunny Side)

Goodreads Blurb:

Divorced preschool teacher Sarah Hurlihy’s first mistake is letting her bossy big sister write her personal ad. Her second mistake is showing up to meet her first date in more than a decade. Now she’s juggling her teaching job, her big, rollicking, interfering south-of-Boston Irish family, and more men than she knows what to do with. And what’s up with all these dogs that are suddenly galloping into her life?

Goodreads Blurb:

Dylan Mint has Tourette’s. For Dylan, life is a constant battle to keep the bad stuff in – the swearing, the tics, the howling dog that escapes whenever he gets stressed. And, as a sixteen-year-old virgin and pupil at Drumhill Special School, getting stressed is something of an occupational hazard.

But then a routine visit to the hospital changes everything. Overhearing a hushed conversation between the doctor and his mother, Dylan discovers that he’s going to die next March.

So he grants himself three parting wishes: three ‘Cool Things To Do Before I Cack It’.

It isn’t a long list, but it is ambitious, and he doesn’t have much time. But as Dylan sets out to make his wishes come true, he discovers that nothing – and no-one – is quite as he had previously supposed.

Goodreads Blurb:

This is a book about dogs: the love we have for them, and the way that love helps us understand the people we have been.

It’s in the love of dogs, and my love for them, that I can best now take the measure of the child I once was, and the bottomless, unfathomable desires that once haunted me.

There are times when it is hard for me to fully remember that love, which was once so fragile, and so fierce. Sometimes it seems to fade before me, like breath on a mirror.

But I remember the dogs.

In her New York Times opinion column, Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote about her relationship with her beloved dog Indigo, and her wise, funny, heartbreaking column went viral. In Good Boy, Boylan explores what should be the simplest topic in the world, but never is: finding and giving love.

Goodreads Blurb:

When Elizabeth Fischer unexpectedly loses her job as the head of public relations at a large pharmaceutical company, she’s left with big bills and few options. She reluctantly accepts a job as the president of an animal shelter in Spring Valley, a small town twenty miles outside of the city.

Elizabeth is a big-city girl, who has never even owned a pet. What does she know about running an animal shelter? She has no idea how much her life is about to change.

Goodreads Blurb:

Liliana is the disappointing daughter of hardworking immigrant parents. She is a girl looking to be rescued from her own insecurities and bad decisions. Unable to afford rent in New York City proper, she is craving a life of luxury that isn’t hers, while subsisting on bagels and coffee. In desperate need of support – emotional and otherwise -, she clings to potential saviors, never bothering to question if the attachments she forms really fit her.

In a parallel storyline, her mother, Maria, is trying to reject all offers of help, especially those of her estranged husband, whose unexpected generosity forces her to revisit past mistakes she hasn’t come to terms with. Enmeshed in her own drama, she doesn’t notice her daughter’s troubles until it’s too late. Desperate to keep Liliana from making a mistake that will alter the course of her life, Maria reveals her best-kept secret, a story so shocking it might have the power to jerk Liliana back to reality. It could, on the other hand, alienate her forever.

Goodreads Blurb:

Rebecca Miller is a gifted veterinarian with an extraordinary understanding of animal behavior. She is leading a fulfilling life as the owner and operator of the Animal Friends Veterinary Clinic. Ever since her 30th birthday, her mother has made it her mission to help Rebecca find a man, get married, and give her grandchildren. But Rebecca doesn’t see the need for a man in her life. She has her dog, Captain, and that’s all the companionship she needs. However, her world changes the day she literally runs into Derrick Peterson, a gorgeously handsome ER doctor.

Derrick’s experiences with women have taught him that they are vain, silly, and untrustworthy. He keeps his relationships with them brief and superficial. However, he finds himself being irresistibly drawn to Rebecca. She’s smart, witty, compassionate, and very different from the women he usually encounters. Will Rebecca be the one to break down the wall he’s spent a lifetime building around his heart?

Goodreads Blurb:

There’s a new judge in Dog Court. She has a furry, four-legged secret. Will a contemptible canine cost Marti the prestigious post–and her marriage?

Marti Forrester hates saying no. So when the mayor appoints her to preside over dog court, she steps up–even though Hank, her own despicable darling, is the poster dog for poor training. Hank’s misdeeds nibbled away at her marriage until husband Oliver took a break–with the dog. Now Hank is back and she’s scrambling to cover his dirty tracks to avoid a scandal.

When someone threatens to expose Marti and put Hank in peril, she digs deep into the secrets of Dog Town’s old guard. The politics turn deadly, giving her one chance to save her beloved pooch and her floundering marriage before she loses them forever.

Goodreads Blurb:

A Rescue Dog and an Unexpected Date with Destiny

Isla McInnis flies across the country to Dorset Hills on a hunch that a sweet little rescue dog named Rio will change her life forever. But when she reaches the scenic town, the dog has already found a home.

Bruce Duncan doesn’t believe in whims or fate. The expert trainer is looking for reliable, local homes for his rescue dogs. Isla, an investigative reporter from L.A., may be pretty, persuasive and annoyingly persistent, but she doesn’t tick any of the right boxes for a good owner in his eyes.

When a quirky band of rescue rebels takes Isla under its wing and into the hills with Bruce to meet some available dogs, she has one day, one chance to prove she’s worthy of a special Dorset Hills dog–even if Rio is no longer an option.

By the time the sun sets, Isla questions whether adorable Rio was the true reason she was called to this quaint town in the first place.

Is it possible that destiny comes wrapped in fur?

Goodreads Blurb:

Garrett Kilcannon, a former dot com super-success who now devotes his life to rescuing dogs and finding them homes, prefers to keep his secrets buried as deep as a dog hides his bone. So when he learns his father has invited a journalist to Waterford Farm to write and produce an in-depth profile on him, he doesn’t care that she’s a childhood friend or drop dead gorgeous. He has zero tolerance for the media…until he sees a different side when she gets through the walls of a rescue dog who’s refused to eat during her short stay at Waterford. Unwillingly charmed and undeniably attracted, Garrett agrees to the interview that could break down a few of his emotional walls, too.

Garrett might not want to share the story of his colorful former life, but Jessie Curtis has the skills to peel back the layers of this sexy, complicated, caring man. In the process, she not only discovers his secrets, she finds herself falling for a man who touches her heart in a way she never thought possible. Her entire career is riding on this one explosive interview, but can she bear to repay Garrett’s trust by selling his secrets? Or can a woman who gave up on happiness a long time ago learn to believe that all it takes to rescue a lost heart is the love of a good man?

Goodreads Blurb:

Desperate father Ian McKinley moves his delinquent teenage son to the small Virginia town of Keeling Creek, a place very unlike the New York City life he has been leading. Love takes him by surprise when he falls for Colby Williams, a woman unlike anyone he has ever been drawn to, a small town vet with a heart for animals and a fierce love for a teenage daughter she is also struggling to raise.

But Colby has a secret in her past, a secret she’s not sure her daughter will ever forgive her for. And as for Ian McKinley, he seems too good to be true. If she had learned anything from the one time she had thrown her heart fully into love, it was that it didn’t last.

Alex